Xing Muzheng, Dingxi Marquis, had gone mad.
When it came to Dingxi Marquis, Xing Muzheng, there was no one in the entire Great Xie Dynasty who didn’t know his name. He was the legendary General Dingxi, famed across the realm.
Born a commoner, he joined the army at sixteen. In those days, the barbaric Western Li Kingdom, known for eating raw meat and drinking blood, launched a massive invasion, with war and smoke engulfing the borders. As the defending troops suffered defeat after defeat, Xing Muzheng stepped forward. Leading a squad of barely over a dozen men, he launched a surprise attack, burned the enemy’s supplies, and won the very first battle against Western Li.
Afterward, Xing Muzheng continued to fight on all fronts, earning great military merit. The emperor personally bestowed upon him the title of General Dingxi, placing the imperial military seal in his hands. Through bloody campaigns, he forged the fierce and battle-hardened Xing Family Army, eventually forcing the King of Western Li to submit a formal letter of surrender.
Leading his troops in triumph, Xing Muzheng also swept away most of the bandits and outlaws along the way. Wherever he passed, citizens lined the roads to greet him, expressing heartfelt gratitude. During court deliberations over merits and rewards, Xing Muzheng petitioned for rewards on behalf of his soldiers, but chose to lay down his armor and blades, requesting permission to return to the countryside.
The emperor tried again and again to keep him, but Xing Muzheng’s mind was made up. With a sigh, the emperor granted him a noble title, Dingxi Marquis, and awarded him the region of his hometown as his fief, letting him return home in glory.
Although the fief was not a wealthy land, neither was it barren. Xing Muzheng brought with him a group of loyal brothers-in-arms who also laid down their weapons, returning to Yuzhou to rest and recover.
But just then, Dingxi Marquis—went mad.
The first to discover Xing Muzheng’s madness was the chief steward, Zhou Mu. At the time, he was reporting routine affairs when Xing Muzheng suddenly leapt up from his seat, clutching his head and screaming wildly. Stumbling about, he smashed everything in the room to pieces. The steward, terrified and unsure whether to intervene, was suddenly grabbed by the throat and thrown to the ground by his master, who then kicked and punched him furiously.
Xing Muzheng ran out into the courtyard, striking anyone he saw, biting dogs he passed. Chaos erupted—chickens flew, dogs barked, and the manor fell into madness.
The household claimed that Xing Muzheng was merely a distant relative of the Marquis and summoned the best doctors to treat him. Yet none could make sense of his condition. Monks were brought in to chant scriptures, Daoists to perform rituals, and spirit mediums to pray to the gods… Every rite was done, every incense donation made—but nothing worked.
Thus, Dingxi Marquis went mad.
Sometimes he was dazed and vacant like an idiot, other times frenzied and violent like a wild beast. He was either drooling and giggling, or smashing objects and hitting people—never a moment of clarity. The steward, at a complete loss, wanted to summon Xing Muzheng’s former comrades to discuss a solution. But the soon-to-be equal wife, Feng Yuyan, firmly opposed it. She said if word got out, the Marquis’s reputation—and that of the entire household—would be ruined. If he recovered one day, how could he ever show his face again?
Feng Yuyan had once been one of the empire’s three most talented women. Orphaned young, she lived with her uncle in Suizhou. Tragically, she was captured by a flower thief. By sheer chance, Xing Muzheng’s triumphant army was passing nearby at night. While resting at an old temple, he noticed something amiss and rescued her. The entire Feng family was grateful beyond words and offered their young lady in marriage.
Xing Muzheng admired her talent and beauty, but he already had a main wife, Qian Jiaoniang, chosen by his mother. Feng Yuyan, willing to lower her status, offered to become a concubine. But not wanting to wrong her, Xing Muzheng promised to make her a equal wife upon returning home.
Due to the long journey, her elders decided she would travel ahead with a few attendants to Yuzhou, planning to marry as soon as they arrived. However, Xing Muzheng had gone to Guixian to fetch his mother and original wife and children, only to find that his mother had passed away two years earlier, with all burial matters handled solely by Madam Qian. Although generals were not required to mourn formally, Xing Muzheng, moved by filial duty, decided to observe the remaining mourning period before marrying again.
Feng Yuyan thus stayed at the manor, receiving all the privileges and stipends of the main wife, awaiting the end of mourning to officially marry into the family.
At that time, Xing Muzheng had just returned to Yuzhou as the lord of the fief. Everything in the land required his oversight. He had no time for domestic affairs, and since Madam Qian was illiterate and unfamiliar with household management, she asked the steward to assist Feng Yuyan in handling the estate affairs. Over time, though Feng Yuyan had not yet formally married in, everyone in the household treated her as half the master.
Now, as Feng Yuyan spoke, she sat weakly in her chair, her eyes ringed with bruises, her wrist wrapped in bandages—all thanks to the now-mad Xing Muzheng. She had once believed her love could bring him back to his senses. But he didn’t even recognize her. After only a few words, he shoved her to the ground and began punching and kicking. Raised in the sheltered inner chambers since birth, she had never endured such torment—she fainted from the first blow and never dared approach him again.
After being frightened several more times, the once-proud young lady was nearly scared out of her wits. She couldn’t take it anymore and ordered him chained with iron in his room, claiming to outsiders that the Marquis was gravely ill and unable to receive visitors.
The once-glorious General Dingxi had become a caged beast, his limbs bound by thick chains. Even as his body bruised and bloodied, he continued to smash his head against the walls. Feng Yuyan ordered a chair nailed to the floor and had him locked into it. It took six servants—one of whom died and five who were injured—to complete the task.
The once-feared and famous Xing Muzheng now sat bound in a dark, windowless room. Meals were delivered by servants who fed him spoon by spoon. Soup, rice, and oil dribbled everywhere, staining his filthy clothes. Changing his garments was near impossible, let alone bathing or relieving himself properly. Within days, a stench clung to him.
Eventually, it seemed his madness had run its course. He sat motionless in the chair, eyes vacant and dull, staring at the floor. Still afraid he might erupt again, Feng Yuyan had him kept tightly bound.
The marquis’s legendary brilliance had gradually faded, leaving behind only the shell of a dull, stupefied man—a man who reeked so badly he was unbearable to be near.
When Qian Jiaoniang saw Xing Muzheng again, this was the disgraceful state she found him in.
He hadn’t changed clothes in nearly a month. His hair was as wild and tangled as a bird’s nest made of broken straw and eggshells. His cheeks were waxy yellow, gaunt and sunken, his beard matted with food remnants, and his body, tightly bound, emitted a suffocating stench. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed all around him.
“Has the marquis always been like this?” Qian Jiaoniang asked softly after watching for a while.
Qian Jiaoniang was Xing Muzheng’s first wife, but merely an illiterate village girl who couldn’t even recognize a single written word. Xing Muzheng had come from humble beginnings—his father was a schoolteacher who later died of illness. When war loomed and the people suffered, Xing Muzheng wanted to enlist. His widowed mother wailed and insisted he must marry first and leave behind an heir before going to the battlefield. But no respectable family was willing to marry their daughter to a man about to risk his life in war. So Xing Muzheng, obeying his mother’s wish, married Qian Jiaoniang, who had been sold off by her parents.
After entering the household, she chose the most secluded corner of the residence to live in, kept to herself, and was so reclusive that many of the household staff had never even seen this lady of the house.
Zhou Mu bowed and replied, “Yes, Madam.”
“Him!” Xing Pingchun charged forward, his dark face flushed red with anger. He tugged fiercely at his shackles and looked up with reddened eyes. “Mother, what happened to Father? Why is he chained up like this!”
Jiaoniang couldn’t answer. This was her first time seeing the marquis in such madness. Though she had heard rumors, she couldn’t reconcile the words “insane” and “mad” with Xing Muzheng—it all felt like some kind of conspiracy. Later, no one said anything more. They simply claimed the marquis was gravely ill and unfit to be seen. Who would have expected the steward Zhou to come find her, begging her to save the marquis?
“Let the marquis go first,” Qian Jiaoniang said.
Zhou Mu hesitated. “Madam, this…”
Jiaoniang met his eyes. “Steward Zhou, your lord is ill, yet you tie him to a chair and leave him to die.”
Zhou Mu paled with fright. “I wouldn’t dare!”
“Then why haven’t you unbound him?” Jiaoniang’s brows furrowed. “The marquis defended our country, drove out the Western Lu barbarians—he’s a hero! Without him, Great Xie might’ve already perished. You, me, and all the people of Great Xie would be nothing but citizens of a fallen nation! And such a man—you bind like livestock?”
Such words! Zhou Mu hurriedly signaled to the servants to call more attendants.
But before they could arrive, Feng Yuyan arrived with a crowd of handmaids. She had always carried herself with the pride of a noble lady and had never given the original village wife a proper glance, nor stepped foot into Jiaoniang’s rooms. Though the two lived in the same estate, they rarely ever crossed paths.
“Jiaoniang,” Feng Yuyan called with a slight smile, addressing her by name.
Qian Jiaoniang clutched the handkerchief in her hand and gave a faint nod.
“Jiaoniang, weren’t you doing just fine in the back quarters? Why’ve you come up front? Haven’t received your monthly allowance yet?” Feng Yuyan said cheerfully, not even glancing at the filth inside.
“I’m not here for the allowance—I came to visit the marquis,” Jiaoniang replied. “Were you the one who had him tied up?”
“I was,” Feng Yuyan admitted without hesitation. “You don’t understand, Jiaoniang—the marquis goes completely berserk. I was kicked and beaten by him twice—nearly lost my life! I was afraid the rest of the household would be harmed like me, so I had him tied up.”
Jiaoniang said, “Of course we shouldn’t let anyone get hurt. But even so, we can’t treat the marquis like this. In my view, we should release him…”
“No.” Feng Yuyan refused instantly. She was genuinely terrified of the rampaging Marquis of Dingxi.
